We’ve been keeping just as much of an eye as everyone else on this week’s drama involving Kanye West being a little too logged on here at The A.V. Club, but frankly the whole thing has been too exhausting to thoughtfully chronicle every twist and turn, especially after the signed MAGA hats and Trump RTs got involved.
Now it’s Friday, and someone else wants the fuck off of this ride: West’s fellow Chicagoan Chance the Rapper, who waded right into the middle of the shit when he defended West by tweeting, “Black people don’t have to be democrats,” after West’s barrage of pro-Trump dragon energy on Wednesday. Chance, a vocal supporter of former president Barack Obama, apparently did not anticipate the celebrity-obsessed current administration seizing upon his comment, and reacted with understandable horror when Trump gave him a shoutout this morning on Twitter:
That’s when he turned to that old stalwart of online apologies, the Notes app. Two minutes later, he followed up with a lengthy apology/explanation, saying that “I didn’t speak up because I agree with what Kanye had to say or because I fuck with Trump, I did it because I wanted to help my friend and cause I felt like I was being used to attack him.”
He adds, “I would never support someone who has made a career out of hatred, racism, and discrimination … let my apology be seen in my future works, and let me make up for my poorly timed comments with immediate action and advocacy for those who need it most.” He adds that the relationship between Black Chicagoans and the Democratic Party in particular has indeed been fraught over the decades, but “again, said that shit at the wrongest time.” You can click through to the complete statement below.